Keyword: babyboomers

Writers commenting on the Supreme Court's recent discovery of a constitutional right to gay marriage have (quite logically) cast this as the latest chapter in the sexual revolution begun by the Baby Boomers. But it must also be seen in the context of the larger "gift" left for us by that same generation. I am speaking specifically of the Boomers' rejection of their parents and the corresponding cultural abandonment of wisdom. If you were around during the late 1960s and early 1970s, you'll remember that this was everywhere . UC Berkeley student Jack Weinberg coined the mantra of the era:...

Yesterday, we began our high-minded graduation speech to the Class of 2015. We explained how the young graduates were not only the most heavily indebted in history, but also the least likely to be able to pay their debts. Median wages have been going down since these graduates were about five years old… So have economic growth rates. Today, we continue the speech no one wants us to give… You are heirs to claptrap, nonsense, bogus theories, and trillions of dollars in debt. The systems, programs, and institutions your parents set up are mostly worthless scams. Worse, they produce outcomes...

At 67, Hillary Clinton is now a “woman of a certain age.” So much emphasis and worry are put on physical aging in women that the emotional maturity and freedom that can come at this time are given short shrift. That robs everyone of a great natural resource. As women of a certain age, it is our time to lead. The new standard for aging women should be about vitality, strength, and assertiveness. One of the largest demographics in America is women in their forties to sixties, and by 2020 there will be nearly 60 million peri- and post-menopausal women...

A tectonic shift is occurring in American politics. The old guard of the Democratic Party will soon be far too ancient to contest an election. This creates serious problems for the party once 2016 passes. It’s obvious that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden will soon announce their candidacy, but who will fill the ranks when they’re gone? It’s important to know that there was once a socially conservative generation deemed "The Greatest Generation." These, the heroes of Anzio and Guadalcanal, gave birth to a litter of selfish creatures called "baby boomers." The baby boomers soon colonized communal settlements known as...

Based on historical patterns, the next president is likely to be a GenXer. This is not good news for the many baby boomers running, or thinking about running, in 2016. When voters decide it is time to move the presidency on to the next generation, they keep electing presidents in that next generation, or they go on to the one that follows. They do not go back. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were from the baby boomer generation. Barack Obama is from the Gen X generation (those born 1961 to 1981). If the pattern holds, the next president will...

HICAGO — Denee Mallon marveled at the view of Lake Michigan from her hospital bed in the Windy City, where she had just made history: the then 74-year-old transgender woman underwent a milestone sex reassignment surgery she'd sought for decades. "Here I am, finally, after all these years," she said. "It happened." Her operation will be one of the first paid for by Medicare after she won a challenge in May to end the government insurance program's ban on covering such procedures for transgender individuals. Mallon's victory opened the door for other seniors to access this care and may influence...

Last month — gulp — I turned a quarter-century old. To the boomers rolling your eyes right now and thinking, Twenty-five? You’re just a kid! I say this: Yes, by some standards, I am. By Beyoncé’s standards, I should have at least six albums and a fashion line under my belt. Regardless, 25 feels significant to me, so when I came across the headline “25 is the New 21” on The Atlantic’s website, I was intrigued — and soon, discouraged. Meet Emma, recent college graduate, daughter of the article’s author, Randye Hoder, and, apparently, exemplar of my generation’s extended childhood....

Volkswagen hopes to put more robots to work as it says goodbye to its retiring baby boomer employees, the company’s chief of human resources wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Monday. […] “In the German auto industry, labor costs are more than €40 per hour; eastern European labor costs €11; in China, it’s still than less than €10,” (Horst) Neumann wrote. “A current robotic replacement for assembly work currently costs around €5 an hour. Predictably, next-generation robotics will be even cheaper. We have to take make the most of this price advantage.” …

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the chief architects of the Affordable Care Act, says people should want to die at age 75. “Let’s face it, the vast majority of those over age 75 have nothing positive to contribute to society,” Emanuel wrote in an essay for Atlantic. “In both physical and mental terms they’re pretty accurately described as ‘decepit.’ Their bodies and minds are just rotting in their shells.” “It would be best if they could be persuaded to exit peacefully at their own hand—perhaps with the aid of a physician-prescribed suicide drug,” Emanuel suggested. “Heaven knows this would be...

Many problems with kids can be traced to their parents. So why have millennials been singled out as a uniquely depraved generation? Weren’t they raised by somebody? For those who may have missed the latest skirmish in America’s generational warfare, a new survey by marketing firm DDB finds millennials — those between 19 and 34 years old, more or less — may be more venal and self-aggrandizing than older folks. They’re more likely to consider themselves workaholics — even with a work ethic their elders find lacking — and a scandalous 27% of millennials say they’d take credit for a...

At the time, it must have all seemed unforgettable: the endless revelations of wrongdoing, the painful congressional investigation and, finally, the soft black-and-white image of Richard Nixon resigning the presidency.But ask todayâ€™s students about the events of Watergate 40 years ago and odds are that many have never heard of the scandal, or, at best, are vaguely aware that something happened once that lives on in a suffix attached to the occasional controversy. major reason is that in U.S. classrooms and textbooks, the discussion of Watergate is going the way of the Teapot Dome Scandal and the Petticoat Affair: increasingly...

"Tea party members don't think there's a federal role in transportation!" complained Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, last week, near the site of a $5.8 million highway project. If only most tea party members were that radical. While Brown and other big-government folks worry that Republicans will cut spending, Republicans debate adding another $10.5 billion to the Highway Trust Fund to keep it going another year -- without deciding how to reform it. Now, there's no doubt some roads and bridges need work. But too little transportation money spent by government goes to building and repairing roads. As Cato Institute transportation...

The median age declined in seven states between 2012 and 2013, including five in the Great Plains, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today. In contrast, the median age for the U.S. as a whole ticked up from 37.5 years to 37.6 years. These estimates examine population changes among groups by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin nationally, as well as all states and counties, between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2013. "We're seeing the demographic impact of two booms," Census Bureau Director John Thompson said. "The population in the Great Plains energy boom states is becoming younger...

Even as millions of baby boomers approach retirement, the Social Security Administration has been closing dozens of field offices, forcing more and more seniors to seek help online instead of in person, according to a congressional report being released Wednesday. The agency blames budget constraints. As a result, seniors seeking information and help from the agency are facing increasingly long waits, in person and on the phone, the report said. Social Security has closed 64 field offices since 2010, the largest number of closures in a five-year period in the agency’s history, according to a report by the bipartisan staff...

"When officers pulled Short over it was for a routine traffic stop. Since he's on supervised release for previous meth sales they searched his car. "When the officers searched the car they located four ounces of methamphetamine in the car, which is a lot of methamphetamine, so that's consistent with somebody who's selling," said Fresno police Lt. Joe Gomez. After searching his apartment, they found a half pound of meth, heroin and materials for a meth lab. "Just shocking someone that age would do that, but actually a perfect place to do it, right? Retirement village, who would suspect it...

Every month when the employment data is released there is an almost immediate debate that erupts over the Labor Force Participation Rate. Like any good boxing match, both sides take to their corners. Defenders argue the decline is primarily due to retiring "baby boomers" and demographic trends while opponents suggest that it is a sign that employment remains far weaker than headlines suggest.As I discussed previously, recent employment increases, while encouraging have been little more than a function of population growth. As the population grows, incremental demand increases caused by that increase in population will create employment needs in areas...

When Robin McLane’s generation hit public schools in the 1950s, there were never enough classrooms or teachers to accommodate the bulge, she said. So she’s not surprised about the latest shock that boomers are delivering to the U.S. economy. “People all around me, relatives and friends, are either retiring, or they’re finding it’s very difficult to find work anywhere from 55 on,” said the 65-year-old, who lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and retired from her job as a high school literacy specialist in June. “For me, I was ready to move on.” The share of Americans in the labor force,...

<p>CHICAGO (AP) -- It's an assertion that has been accepted as fact by droves of the unemployed: Older people remaining on the job later in life are stealing jobs from young people.</p>
<p>One problem, many economists say: It isn't supported by a wisp of fact.</p>

A gift of days with the extended family stretching from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday inevitably invites reflection on the fields of folly where we find the rising generations at work and play. Youth, beautiful in its blossoming, arrives with predictable attitude, often illustrated by various piercings and tattoos. They're adolescents forever in search of a way to make the "meaningful" statement, as elusive as the maturity that lies ahead. Babies, naturally, are exempt from criticism, gurgling and sucking their thumbs, blissfully unaware that the Brobdingnags around them are blowing their inheritance on big-government deficits. But as the seniors say, leaving...

LOS ANGELES — After 20 years in the US military, James Cummiskey was divorced and looking for a change. Relenting to his buddy's request, he flew to Medellín, Colombia, for a visit. He looked, he saw, and, by dinner time, he decided to stay. Permanently. "After four to five hours, I was immediately captured by everything I saw," says the ex-marine, who has lived in 35 countries. He spent the next four months selling two homes, three vehicles, two motorcycles, and one airplane. He put the money aside and decided to retire early. Now he lives in a posh section...

We are the generation that changed everything. Of all the eras and epochs of Americans, ours is the one that made the biggest impression—on ourselves. That's an important accomplishment, because we're the generation that created the self, made the firmament of the self, divided the light of the self from the darkness of the self, and said, "Let there be self." If you were born between 1946 and 1964, you may have noticed this yourself. That's not to say we're a selfish generation. Selfish means "too concerned with the self," and we're not. Self isn't something we're just, you know,...

Baby Boomers might not be aware of the harm to their health that could come from high levels of copper and iron in the blood stream. Of course, that's because you haven't seen any public health messages and probably haven't been warned by your doctor that you could be ingesting either of the two from unknown sources that can put you at risk for a variety of common health problems that we shrug off as inevitable with aging. Iron is necessary to carry oxygen throughout the body. Copper helps our body use iron, protects our nerve cells and is important...

October 31, 2013 Spoiled, greedy, indifferent boomers infest Obama’s self-indulgent White House Wesley Pruden The Obama White House suffers from “the ‘60s disease.” The affliction seems to be terminal. The president’s men — and women — are mostly boomers, spoiled, greedy and self-centered, nurtured and indulged in the decade of the 1960s, when the culture first began to rot. The boomers taught each other many things, how to turn up the volume on their “music,” where to find the best pot and where to crash to smoke themselves into mellow stupefaction, how to avoid taking responsibility for their blunders, and...

One of the great American assumptions — that while individuals and families may rise and fall, each generation will end up on average better off than the one that preceded it — has been the subject of much scrutiny in the past decade. Democrats and their affiliated would-be wealth redistributors have argued that the large income gains enjoyed by the highest-paid workers threaten the American dream of ever-upward generational mobility, while others have worried that the housing meltdown and the Great Recession, which inflicted serious damage on the net worths of many American families, now stand in the way of...

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, If you want to frighten Baby Boomers, just show them the list of statistics in this article. The United States is headed for a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude, and we are woefully unprepared for it. At this point, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers are reaching the age of 65 every single day, and this will continue to happen for almost the next 20 years. The number of senior citizens in America is projected to more than double during the first half of this century, and some absolutely enormous financial promises...

A Gallup Poll on US Payroll Employment for Age Group 18 to 29 shows Fewer Young Adults Holding Full-Time Jobs in 2013. Fewer Americans aged 18 to 29 worked full time for an employer in June 2013 (43.6%) than did so in June 2012 (47.0%), according to Gallup's Payroll to Population employment rate. The P2P rate for young adults is also down from 45.8% in June 2011 and 46.3% in June 2010. Younger Americans Less Likely to Have Full-Time Work Now, Regardless of Education Older Americans More Likely to Hold Full-Time Jobs Now Than a Year Ago The lack of...

I have believed for some time that the left is intellectually bankrupt. I can’t think of a single new idea from the left of the political spectrum since the end of the Vietnam War. The left has no idea what to do about our failing public schools. It has no solution to the problem of entitlement spending. It has no earthly idea what to do about all the problems in our health care system. There is no coherent proposal on the left to reform the tax system. I think it is no exaggeration to say that the left has no...

Last spring, Frank Turkaly tried to kill himself. A retiree in a Pittsburgh suburb living on disability checks, he was estranged from friends and family, mired in credit card debt and taking medication for depression, cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Members of Generation X, the so-called slackers weaned on Saturday morning cartoons, divorce and cynicism, are now in their late 30s to late 40s. And according to a recent report, those born between 1966 and 1975 really do have something to complain about. A Pew Charitable Trust study, titled "Retirement Security Across Generations," examined the savings behavior of five age groups before the Great Recession hit and found that Gen Xers - the group of Americans following the baby boomers and range in age from 38 to 47 - fared especially poorly during the recent economic down swing. As a...

To: Those of You Born 1930 - 1979 At the end is a quote of the month attributed to Jay Leno.. If you don't read anything else, Please read what he Said. TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints. We had...

If you think it’s hard saving for retirement as a couple, trying doing it as a single. According to a study—described by one expert as the most intriguing of 2012—the amount of money singles in their late 60s have saved up for retirement is dramatically less than that of married-couple households. In fact, the median married household had in 2008 nearly 10 times more saved up for retirement than the median single-person household, $111,600 vs. $12,500. (Savings, for the record, included 401(k)s and IRAs and all taxable savings and investment accounts, but it did not include Social Security, pensions, or...

Editor's Note: Rush Limbaugh's article was written in response to PolicyMic Pundit Alex Smith, National Chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). In her op-ed, "Millennials Are a Tremendous Opportunity for the Republican Party," she calls on millennials to fight to re-invent the Republican Party to represent young people.I'm a baby boomer, so I'm allowed to begin this by talking about myself. I have only one request and that is before you read this, please put out of your mind everything you have heard about me in the media, everything you think you know about me, and just...

The US Census Bureau, in "The Older Population" indicates that Baby Boomers are defined as follows: 6 The Baby Boom includes people born from mid-1946 to 1964. The Baby Boom is distinguished by a dramatic increase in birth rates following World War II, and is one of the largest generations in U.S. history. For more information, see: Hogan, Perez, and Bell, 2008, Who (Really) Are the First Baby Boomers? In Joint Statistical Meetings Proceedings, Social Statistics Section, Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association, pp. 1009–1016. You are now from about 50 to 67 years old, and you are the glad result...

A generation of Americans who embraced communal living in the 1960s is again considering that concept and other ways to coexist as they near retirement. This time, they’ve traded peace signs for dollar signs. “By force of sheer volume, the (baby boomers) who in 1968 thought they would change the world by 2028 actually will,” said Andrew Carle, founding director of the Program in Senior Housing Administration at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Over the next three decades, one in five U.S. citizens will turn 65 or older, Carle said. They’ll control more than half of the discretionary income,...

Like many other "baby boomers," I've been reflecting on the last few weeks with mixed emotions. We've seen just about everything that there is to see in one's life time, and many many things that occured for the first time. Mostly good of course, like the things all people experience personally with their families. I think for many of us it was the death of Kennedy that started it. Saying that we lost our innocence is putting it mildly, but we lost it tens time over again during the 60s, the Challenger disaster, World Towers etc. Each death of someone...

The past four years have witnessed a battle between different generations of Catholics in public life—Generation X Catholics have taken a very different path from Baby Boomer Catholics and those born before the boomers. Generation X Catholics have emerged prominently in the Republican Party. Many who were mentioned this year on Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential short list were Gen X Catholics—Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Kelly Ayotte and Marco Rubio. They were given prominent spots at the Republican National Convention (Jindal could not attend because of Hurricane Isaac). They continue to elicit excitement as the “future” of the Republican Party and conservatism...

The Economist ominously reports: The struggle to digest the swollen generation of ageing baby-boomers threatens to strangle economic growth. As the nature and scale of the problem become clear, a showdown between the generations may be inevitable. The statistics are frightening: The average federal tax rate for a median American household, including income and payroll taxes, dropped from more than 18% in 1981 to just over 11% in 2011. Yet sensible tax reforms left less revenue for the generous benefits boomers have continued to vote themselves, such as a prescription-drug benefit paired with inadequate premiums. Deficits exploded. Erick Eschker, an...

Retirees and near-retirees are leaving behind a devastated economy for their children ... but are we doing anything to fix it? Here, two generations debate who's really to blame for the wreckage. ***** CRESCENT LAKE, Ore.--My father taught me how to throw a baseball and divide big numbers in my head and build a life where I'd be home in time to eat dinner with my kid most nights. He and my mother put me through college and urged me to follow my dreams. He never complained when I entered a field even less respected than his. He lives across...

Born in 1970, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan is the first generation X’er to be on a national ticket. Since the 1990’s my fellow generation Xer’s have been an often overlooked group of individuals compared to the older and much larger generation of baby boomers and the World War II generation. We’ve been called slackers, baby busters, cynical, skeptical, angry and indifferent among other descriptions. However, is this really the case now? Forty percent of generation X’ers are from families whose parents divorced. Many became known as “latch key children.” The Bergen County Record reported in 1995: More than...

Never before in history has the great American middle class obsessed so much over financial planning as during the last forty years or so. ... And yet here we are today. According to a recent study by the Employee Benefits Research Institute, fully 44 percent of Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers lack the savings and pension coverage needed to meet basic retirement-age expenses, even assuming no future cuts in Social Security or Medicare, employer-provided benefits, or home prices. Most Americans approaching retirement age don’t have a 401(k) or other retirement account. Among the minority who do, the median balance in 2009...

Today’s youth, both here and abroad, have been screwed by their parents’ fiscal profligacy and economic mismanagement. Neil Howe, a leading generational theorist, cites the “greed, shortsightedness, and blind partisanship” of the boomers, of whom he is one, for having “brought the global economy to its knees.” How has this generation been screwed? Let’s count the ways, starting with the economy. No generation has suffered more from the Great Recession than the young. Median net worth of people under 35, according to the U.S. Census, fell 37 percent between 2005 and 2010; those over 65 took only a 13 percent...

Hey kids, wake up! Stop playing your X-Box while listening to your Facebooks on the iPod and wearing your iPad with the cap turned backwards with the droopy pants and the bikini underwear listening to Snoopy Poopy Poop Dogg and the Enema Man and all that! Take a break from getting yet another tattoo on your ass bone or your nipples pierced already! And STFU about the 1 Percent vs. the 99 Percent! You're not getting screwed by billionaires and plutocrats. You're getting screwed by Mom and Dad.

Though everyone seems to be feeling sorry for millennials, who are experiencing one of the highest unemployment rates and boomers, who are delaying their retirement due to the economy, the generation in between, Gen X, deserves their own time in the recession limelight. A Census report released on Monday found that people between 35 and 44 saw a 59 percent decline in median household net worth between 2005 to 2010, the largest drop of all age groups. Those 55 to 64, only saw a 25 percent drop, though they had a larger decline in actual dollar amount.

Baby boomers: Get ready for a double whammy. For years now, there's been a lot of talk about boomers getting tremendous windfalls as their parents pass on. Many boomers, in fact, have been lagging behind in their savings, betting on—hoping for—big bequests, especially since many of them suffered big losses in 2008. But for a growing number of boomers, things aren't going according to plan. The postwar generation is living longer—and many are spending their savings along the way. And, of course, many of them also took a hit in 2008. The result is that, as a group, boomers likely...

Is no age group safe from the fiscal woes of economic near-recession and pending entitlement crises? (Hint: No.) While we often focus on the troubles of young people unable to find employment and just chillin' on the parents' couches, and we're already well aware of the upcoming squeeze on Social Security as baby boomers begin to reach retirement age, here's a fun and exciting reminder from the Wall Street Journal. For years now, there's been a lot of talk about boomers getting tremendous windfalls as their parents pass on. Many boomers, in fact, have been lagging behind in their savings,...

The federal government Friday called for all baby boomers to be tested for hepatitis C, which kills more Americans each year than AIDS and is the leading reason for liver transplants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the recommendation to find hundreds of thousands of people who don't realize that they have the infection, which greatly increases their chances of developing cirrhosis and liver cancer. The hepatitis C virus is transmitted by blood, usually through intravenous drug use or transfusions. A blood test for it became widely available in 1992. Extremely small amounts of the virus are able...

When the April figures on unemployment were released May 4, they were more than disappointing. They were deeply disturbing. While the unemployment rate had fallen from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent, 342,000 workers had stopped looking for work. They had just dropped out of the labor market. Only 63.6 percent of the U.S. working age population is now in the labor force, the lowest level since December 1981. During the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton years, participation in the labor force rose steadily to a record 67 percent. The plunge since has been almost uninterrupted. Here is a major cause...

Walter Russell Mead writes on the disappearance of jobs for non-Baby Boomers: An analysis of recent jobs figures at Investor.com reveals a disturbing development: the biggest beneficiaries from the economic recovery are Boomers, while everyone else is getting the shaft. Since the Obama administration took office, there has been an epochal shift. Young workers have continued to lose jobs and incomes, while older workers have actually gained ground. In fact, the Obama administration has seen a boom in the prospects of the 55+ crowd; their (I should say ‘our’) employment stands at a 42 year high. Net, there are 3.9...